Frames Per Second Magazine

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frames per second magazine » www.fpsmagazine.com » may 2005 » your guide to an animated life
Also:
Defining Anime
How to spot the real thing—if it even exists
George Davis
Chuck Jones
Alexandre Alexeïeff
fps
frames per second
the magazine of animation
EDITORIAL
Editor Emru Townsend
Copyeditor Tamu Townsend
Contributors Jeff Boman, Mike
Caputo, Marc Elias, Noell Wolfgram
Evans, Carl Gustav Horn, Mark
Mayerson, Scott Schmeisser, Shuzo
John Shiota, René Walling
Layout Emru Townsend
Cover Image Still from Fragile
Machine, by Aoineko
Table of Contents Image Image
from Merriam-Webster's Collegiate
Dictionary, Tenth Edition
lip sync
3 Anime, Mon Amour
SPECIAL THANKS
Aoineko, George Davis, Dave
"Grue" DeBry, Darren Dugan, Marc
Hairston, Andrew Osmond, Ryoko
Toyama, Vicky Vriniotis, Robert
Woodhead, Sonja Xian
4 Newsreel
spotlight
5 Fifty Years of Shooting
Cartoons
CONTACT US
Phone (514) 696-2153
Fax (514) 696-2497
E-Mail editor@fpsmagazine.com
Web www.fpsmagazine.com
Ad Sales tamu@fpsmagazine.com
Frames Per Second, Vol. II, Issue 2. © 2005
5x5 Media. All images in this magazine
are copyrighted by their respective rights
holders.
cover story
10 What Is Anime?
13 The Coolest Thing Right
Now
reviews
15
16
17
18
Steamboy
Appleseed
Le cinéma épinglé Alexeïeff
The Boy Who Wanted to Be
a Bear Collector's Edition
18 Harvey Birdman, Attorney at
Law Vol. 1
19 Paranoia Agent Vol. 3
20 Chuck Jones: Conversations
21 Where to Get It
22 Closing Credits
the last word
23 The Essence of Anime
lip sync»
Anime, Mon Amour
Emru Townsend on the joy and mystery of discovering anime
As I write this, it’s almost twenty
years to the day since I became
an anime fan. Well, that’s not
completely true. I’d been watching
anime for about ten years before
that, but because most of what I saw
was broadcast in French, I assumed
it had Gallic origins. It wasn’t until
I watched an episode of Robotech
in 1985 that I noticed the end
credit reading “original animation
produced by Tatsunoko Production
Co. Ltd.” followed by the names of
the Japanese producer and director,
Kenji Yoshida and Ippei Kuri.
Prior to that discovery, I wasn’t
really an anime fan, per se. I just
loved cartoons. I knew Goldorak,
Albator, and Capitaine Flam (the
French versions of UFO Robot
Grendizer, Captain Harlock and
Captain Future) were different in
look and tone from the Looney Tunes
I watched religiously, but then so
were the Jay Ward comedies and the
Filmation adventures. So far as I was
concerned, this “French” animation
was just one style among many.
Strangely enough, that
misperception of anime’s origins is
what made me a fan. Faced with
the fact that I was so wrong about
something I thought I knew well, I
decided to learn everything I could
about it.
In the twenty years since my eyes
were opened, I’ve noticed (and often
helped perpetuate) a trend: that
many people’s early experiences
with anime involve a “What is this?”
moment. I supposed mine came
3 / may 2005 / www.fpsmagazine.com
when I realized I’d been giving credit
to the wrong country. But I would
wager that for many people who
were first exposed to anime during
the last century, “What is this?” was
accompanied by “It’s not Disney”
or “It’s not American.” For proof,
you only have to read newspaper
or magazine articles written
by someone who only recently
discovered anime—it’s almost a
certainty that the first paragraph
will set anime up in opposition
to American animation. (Often,
it’s couched in the phrase “This
animation is not for kids”—although
in truth, a lot of it is.)
It’s pretty easy to say what
something is not, but it can be tough
work to get someone to pin down
what something is. Debates on what
you can or cannot consider anime
have come and gone, and I’m sure
there will be more to come. But for
every seemingly definitive rule there
is at best an exception and at worst
a grey area.
Generally I prefer to go back
to my original, pre-enlightenment
worldview, where animation is just
animation; I don’t usually feel an
overwhelming urge to categorize
these things. While those exceptions
and grey areas make things hard
for people who do feel that need, I
find they’re where things become
the most interesting, and where we
discover new works and new ideas.
It’s with this sentiment in mind that
I hope that this issue, at the very
least, provides you with a fresh set of
grey areas to explore. ¡
Above: The soundtrack
to Capitaine Flam;
Goldorak, UFO Robot
Grendizer by any other
name; Robotech put
the Japanese back into
anime.
Compiled
by Emru
Townsend
newsreel»
Big Screen
John Woo is in talks to team up
with anime director and mecha
designer Shinji Aramaki (Appleseed,
Megazone 23) to tell the story of
the Greek god Poseidon. Woo will
produce, Aramaki will direct. No
word yet on how many slow-motion
pigeons Aramaki will be required to
animate.
Obituaries
Andrée Beaulieu-Green died of
undisclosed causes on February 19.
Her passion was the integration
of technology and art, a field she
immersed herself in for over two
decades at the Université du Québec
à Montréal. She before striking out
on her own to found the Institut de
Création Artistique et de Recherche
en Infographie (ICARI) in Montreal,
one of the city's foremost schools
for digital arts including, of course,
animation.
Seeger produced cartoons for
the syndication and Saturday
morning markets, including
Milton the Monster and Batfink.
Though hardly works of art, Seeger
produced memorable shows with
a talented creative staff, including
such industry veterans as Shamus
Culhane, Jack Mercer and Dave
Tendlar.
On March 18, Claude S. Hill passed
away at the age of 71. You may
not recognize his name, but you've
probably seen his handiwork: as a
television show distributor, he was
responsible for getting shows like
Spider-Man, Rocket Robin Hood
and Star Blazers on your television
screen.
Gene Hazelton died on April 6 at
the age of 85. His animation career
started in 1939 at Disney, where he
started as a gag man and ended
up animating on Fantasia and
Pinocchio. For the next twenty years
he moved to several studios, such
as Warner Bros. (where he designed
Shed a tear for George Atkinson,
the characters in Coal Black and
who died of emphysema on
de Sebben Dwarfs), MGM (where
March 9. Atkinson open the first
he worked on Tom & Jerry and Tex
video-rental store in the United
Avery shorts) and finally HannaStates in 1977, paving the way for
Barbera (where he designed Pebbles
many an animation fan. We owe you
and Bamm-Bamm). Shortly after,
big time, George.
he began the move to syndicated
newspaper comic strips based on
Hal Seeger died on March 13, at
Hanna-Barbera properties.
the age of 87. During the 1960s,
spotlight»
Fifty Years of Shooting Cartoons
Noell Wolfgram Evans talks to longtime animation cameraman George Davis
George Davis picked an odd time
to get into animation. It was 1950
and most of the animation studios
at the time found themselves at a
crossroads. Television and its unique
requirements were just coming
together and calling for content;
theatres were adapting to these new
rivals with special processes like 3D,
Cinemascope, Emergo and others. If
those weren’t enough, UPA exploded
into the public consciousness with
an Oscar win in 1950 for Gerald
McBoingBoing, which brought a new
style to the industry.
Still, this was animation and
plenty of people were willing to get
Above: George Davis
at work; I'm Just a Bill involved in the making of cartoons.
on Schoolhouse Rock. One of these was George Davis. In
1950, Davis was working in New
York City as a commercial artist and
sometime photographer. He used
his dual skills to keep busy, often
landing referrals from artists for
photographic work and vice versa.
One of the referrals he got landed
him a photography assignment from
Paul Terry’s Terrytoons studio in New
Rochelle, New York. They wanted
him to head to the Toy Fair Show
in New York City and take some
pictures of the Terrytoons licensed
products that were on display.
When he returned with the
photos, he presented them to Paul
Terry himself, who was very taken
by he had done. They had a long
conversation about photography
and then got into Davis’s other
business, commercial art. Former
newspaper photographer Terry must
have sensed something of his own
career path in Davis and, liking what
he saw, offered him a job with the
studio. Happy to have steady work,
Davis agreed to become an opaquer.
It’s a position that he calls “the
lowest of the low,” but he knew that
he had to take it and put his time in
if he hoped to become an animator.
While opinions of Paul Terry seem
to range, Davis has nothing but kind
words. “He was a good guy,” Davis
remembers. “He treated people
pretty well. He was always very
involved in production, he wasn’t
one of these guys to just sit back,
he was always right in the middle of
everything, chomping on that cigar.”
Davis didn’t stay at Terrytoons
long as he was pressed into service
by Uncle Sam. His penchant for
photography was quickly noticed by
his Air Force superiors and Davis was
assigned to the Aerial Photography
Department. It proved to be an
immensely fortuitous assignment for
him because he had the opportunity
to work in an area that he enjoyed
and showed real talent in.
Four years and thousands
of photographs later, he was
discharged. He took his honed
photographic skills back to Terrytoons
where his opaquer position was
being held for him. After seeing
spotlight»
the experience that the Army had
provided him, though, Terry decided
to reassign Davis to the camera
department and have him trained as
a cinematographer.
Davis entered a seasoned camera
room, where the veterans had no
time or patience for newcomers.
They gave Davis a rough reception;
he recounts being unable to eat
lunch because whenever he left his
camera someone would readjust the
settings on it. He stayed dedicated
and strong, though, eventually
catching the “favour” of Doug Moye
who “really sheltered me,” Davis
recalls. “After about a week he
turned to me and said: ‘My job’s
not to teach but if you stick by, you’ll
learn.’” It’s not the best welcome to
a new job, but Davis is nothing if not
tenacious and determined, and the
rough welcome he received probably
only drove him further to succeed.
At this point, Terrytoons had
been a studio stuck in a sort of
time warp. Most of the employees
had been there for years, which
inspired a certain complacency,
a general disgruntlement and a
static-ness to the house animation
style, which had remained relatively
unchanged from 20 years earlier.
This was all thrown into upheaval
in 1955 when Paul Terry, to the
surprise of everyone, sold the studio
to CBS. This change, along with
the ever-increasing encroachment
of television, caused some mild
panic within the studio. At this point
in his career, George Davis was
making $28 a week and starting
to wonder what he should do with
his life. The CBS purchase seemed
wonderful for him because it could,
he believed, provide him access into
live television.
So Davis approached CBS
about switching to the live camera
department, but the network had
other ideas. Terrytoons had a
contract with 20th Century Fox
to supply them with theatrical
cartoons. And they did, in the same
format every week. Terry knew what
worked and he wasn’t willing to
change. This meant that although
Fox had originated Cinemascope,
since Terry saw no financial gain in
the process for his studio, he never
While his fellow cameramen may have been the cause
of much grief early on, coworkers in other parts of the
studio realized the importance of a good cameraman
and would request Davis for work. There seemed to be a
general consensus that he would look out for them.
had any Cinemascope cartoons
produced. CBS wanted to change
this and they asked Davis to create a
“Cinemascope Department” within
Terrytoons.
It was not an easy task to get
some of the veterans at the studio
to understand this new process
and especially understand why a
(new) cameraman was running
it. Although they are vital to the
animation process it seems that
at Terrytoons, camera operators
were often seen as workers and not
creative partners as perhaps they
should be. Davis told this story to
explain further how uphill his work
could be: “One day I was shooting a
theatrical and I noticed a pretty big
inconsistency so I called the director
in and pointed this out to him. He
got very defensive and yelled that if
I knew anything I would understand
that this was cartoon license. He
stormed out of the room and I was
stuck to try and make this thing
work. About a week later we were
finished shooting and were going
to have a showing in the theatre.
(There was a 100-seat theatre at the
studio). So I’m sitting in there and
up comes the faulty scene. After
it played so poorly, the director
jumps out of his seat, turns to me
and screams ‘What did you do?!’ Of
course I hadn’t touched the thing
but he had to look out for himself.”
It took him six months of
research, twisting arms, picking
brains and trial and error but he
finally created the perfect setup to get Terrytoons on screen in
Cinemascope. The first was Good
Deed Daily, followed quickly by Bird
Symphony. It’s an achievement that
Davis calls one of his proudest.
While his fellow cameramen may
have been the cause of much grief
early on, coworkers in other parts of
the studio realized the importance
of a good cameraman and would
request Davis for work. There seemed
to be a general consensus that he
would look out for them, that he was
interested in making each short the
best it could possibly be and would
do whatever it took to ensure that
happened.
Davis thought highly of many of
his coworkers, singling out director
Connie Rasinski, writer Gene Wood,
cartoonist Jules Feiffer and animator
Ernie Pintoff (“The greatest” in Davis’s
words). It was Pintoff who provided
Davis with one of his favourite
Terrytoons moments. After Paul
Terry left, the studio was effectively
run by Bill Weiss, by all accounts a
hard-nosed man whose only interest
was in the bottom line, often at an
employee’s expense. After being
chastised at lunch by Weiss for some
sort of production matter, Pintoff
turned to Weiss and said, “You know
I sure hate fish but even more than
that I hate you!”
Another of his coworkers at the
studio was Doug Crane. I asked
spotlight»
Crane if he could remember his
first encounter with Davis: “I put
myself back in time for a brief visit
to Monday morning June 11, 1956.
Oh, how well I recall sitting on that
highly polished church pew-type
bench along with another half dozen
‘first day’ artists outside Bill Weiss’s
office that day. I was waiting to
be called in to sign the necessary
workers’ papers and get instructions
on how to punch the time-clock and
the associated house rules. I was
going to be a Terrytooner!!!
“As I sat there, I was fascinated
by the number of people scurrying
past me zipping here and hurrying
there, each busily tending to their
departmental tasks... And above
this din... the dulcet tones of one
individual opening Bill Weiss’s office
door and starting to come out,
waving a sheaf of exposure sheets,
and vociferously proclaiming the
difficulty of... no, the impossibility
of shooting a scene with the sheet
instructions made out in such a
sloppy, awkward, unreadable,
unprofessional, incoherent, idiotic,
(etc.) way... ‘And another thing...’
with that he rolled the sheets into
a tube and, returning to Weiss’s
office, slapped them on Bill’s desk,
and with one final tiger’s bellow, he
stormed out to where we novices
were sitting, there was a pause as he
looked us over—as though to say, ‘Do
you people have any idea at all what
you’re getting into?’ And then with a
slight grin, he winked.”
Davis used that “tough guy”
persona to get his way; it was
almost as if by sheer will power and
stubborn force he could make a
mediocre film good. Beneath that
exterior, though, was a man who
was open, receptive and always
willing to help out. Crane again:
“I used to take my attempts at
animation to George in the hope
that he’d find a spare moment to
film my drawings and add them to
the tail end of his daily shoots which
would then go downtown to the NYC
labs and when returned, he’d splice
off my bits and I could study my
actions on the Movieola...
“When he had a few free
minutes, he would often look over
my animation, and take a pencil and
some paper... and show me where
he thought I was going a bit off...
a little too ‘soft’ or too fast with an
action... give this run more ‘leaning
into’... this could use more weight...
this needs another full half second
of ‘hold’... ‘I’d cross-dissolve here
instead of fading out/fading in...
shows a quicker passage of time...”
It turned out George is not only a
cameraman, but an animator and
an animation instructor to a bunch
of us. If George thought you were
really willing to learn, he would
willingly give you his professional
advice.”
Davis remembers Ralph Bakshi as a “kid who won
an award so the studio hired him. He was good. Out
there, though.” And Bakshi remembered Davis, years
later when both were no longer at Terrytoons; Bakshi
approached Davis about shooting a new full-length
feature he was developing called Fritz the Cat.
Crane further shared stories
of how Davis used his knowledge
and generosity, not just to help
people on their side projects but
to try and enhance the films of the
studio without causing more work
for everyone else: “If we needed a
green glow as an effect or a ghostly
image—it was ‘ask George’... and
he’d give two or three ways it could
be done. He told me once that I
was wasting my time figuring out a
‘vibrating’ pan... east/west slowing
to a stop as I recall... I’d had my
ruler and calculations all worked
out and he said... “oh... just make
a note... east-west vibrate to stop
and make a scribble to show me
about how long you want it... “ He’d
do that vibration or that stagger
himself—and it was always precisely
what I wanted.
“George realized that animators
were often overworked,” Crane
continued to say, “and were fully
capable of making mistakes on their
exposure sheets. He was almost
always able to figure out what the
animator intended... and he’d fix it
himself. On occasion he’d say to an
errant artist: ‘I was tempted to shoot
your scene the way you exposed
it... to teach you a lesson...’ but
thankfully, his bark has always been
worse than his bite.”
One of Davis’s Terrytoons
coworkers who left a particular
impression on him was Ralph
Bakshi. He remembers Bakshi as a
“kid who won an award so the studio
hired him. He was good. Out there,
though.” And Bakshi remembered
Davis, years later when both were
no longer at Terrytoons; Bakshi
approached Davis about shooting
a new full-length feature he was
developing called Fritz the Cat. Davis
found the piece “too dirty,” though,
and passed. The two would work
again with Davis shooting a pencil
test of a series Bakshi was pitching
to HBO.
After working with Tom Terrific,
Heckle and Jeckle, Mighty Mouse
and a host of others, Davis finally
left Terrytoons and went to TransLux
Studios (known for introducing
Gigantor and Speed Racer to
spotlight»
America) were he shot The Mighty
Hercules. He also spent a lot of time
on the side shooting commercials for
places like Hal Seeger Studios and
Shamus Culhane. Over the years
he shot commercials for clients like
Mercedes, Honey Nuts, The Care
Bears, and Pepsi.
The work he did for Seeger
was so consistent and good that
Davis was asked to also take on
the production of several of their
animated television shows including
Milton the Monster and Batfink. We
might look back on some of these
shows with a certain smirk, but
Davis says that Seeger worked hard
to create “nothing but the best... in
his programs and in the employees.”
Commercial work seemed to be
the path he was destined to take
until he had a chance conversation
with Phil Kimmelman of Focus
Communication. Kimmelman had
worked with Davis in the past on
a number of commercials and was
now preparing to work on a series
of animated shorts for television. He
approached Davis one day saying.
“George, you’d be perfect for this
project I’m working on. If you had
your own studio I’m sure I could give
you a steady stream of work.” At this
point in his career, Davis had nearly
expended all he could do at others
studios and decided that having a
steady place of his own wouldn’t
be all that bad. So, after securing
commitments from a few other
producers he opened up a studio on
45th Street in New York City. Davis
remembers the first few months
as being hard. “I had taken out a
$10,000 business loan but after
paying $6,000 for a camera and
buying the rest of the equipment
plus paying rent and so on... it was
not fun for the first few months.
There were days that I just sat next
to all of this equipment, in the dark,
because I couldn’t afford to pay
a light bill so I couldn’t turn the
lights on. I would have Life Savers
for lunch while I waited for the
phone to ring.” True to his promise,
Kimmelman did call; his project was
getting ready to start and he wanted
Davis to shoot it. The project that
Kimmelman had was one of those
touchstone pieces that makes a
mark not just in animation circles,
but as a cultural icon. Kimmelman’s
series was Schoolhouse Rock.
Davis’s best memory of his time
spent on the series is of shooting I’m
Just a Bill, the Emmy award-winning
segment that told the story of how
laws were made. All told, Davis
True to his promise, Kimmelman did call; his project was
getting ready to start and he wanted Davis to shoot it.
Kimmelman’s series was Schoolhouse Rock.
ended up shooting about 85% of
the Schoolhouse Rock segments that
Kimmelman’s group animated.
One of the people that Davis
worked closely with during the
making of Schoolhouse Rock was
Doug Compton. Compton met
George Davis in 1975 when he was
just starting out in the animation
business. Compton says, “George
is a great guy. He comes off as
a ‘tough guy’ when you first are
getting to know him, a real New
York City ballbuster, but deep
inside he is, as Phil Kimmelman
put it, a ‘pussycat.’ I met George
when I started as a messenger
for Phil. I would bring the artwork
down to George’s place to be shot,
sometimes I would be assigned to
do rotoscoping there, which means
I would spend hours under the
camera, tracing relevant details
from live action footage projected
down onto the stand. I came to
know George as a consummate
professional, without a doubt the
best in the city. He shot my own
student film for me, tacking my
scenes onto the footage he shot for
Phil, at no extra charge. I know he
was also involved with coaching
youth sports groups at the time,
which impressed me. I spent a lot of
time in between running messages
for Phil just hanging out at his place.
His company, although a bit gruff,
was quite enjoyable.”
That “gruff but enjoyable” seems
to be a fair summation of the Davis
persona. Witness this remark from
Dean Yeagle. I asked Mr. Yeagle what
one of the best things was about
working with Davis (Davis shot a
number of commercials for Yeagle’s
studio, Caged Beagle Productions).
Yeagle responded “he always had a
fund of stories to tell, in his crabby
and irascible manner.” Yeagle went
on to say: “George is the most
professional cameraman I’ve ever
worked with, and once I found him,
I stuck with him. He always knew
what he was doing, how much it
should cost, how it might best be
accomplished, and he did it on time
and as promised. [He] cared about
his work and took the necessary pains
to do it right.”
During this time, Davis continued
to pull in work from other animation
studios, like Zander’s Animation
Parlour for whom he shot The
Gnomes because, as he bluntly
states, “you have to eat.” The
Gnomes, while not memorable to
many, was important for Davis
because it was his first experience
using a computer-automated camera
system. Up until this point Davis had
done everything by hand, creating
optical effects in camera or directly
on the table. It’s an art form that he
feels is passing. “No one works that
way anymore, it’s all so you just push
a button and it happens. It makes it
spotlight»
So after a nearly fifty-year career that touched on
practically every outlet for animation, is there one film
or piece of work that he would consider a favorite? The
answer is surprising.
easy, sure, but you miss something.”
Davis was forced into this direction
by the times; to be competitive he
had to integrate an MPS system into
his work. Davis shows no resentment
to the change, what he finds an
issue with is people who allow the
computer to do everything. “Because
I had to do things manually for so
long, it’s no stress to me to have
to do the calculations to create a
zoom or a pan,” Davis stated before
adding in a grandfatherly way, “Kids
today can’t do that, they rely to
much on the machine to do all the
work.”
At this point, as any animation
that he was shooting was expressly
for television, he figured that his
days as a cameraman for theatrical
animation were over. He was wrong.
In 1977, he was asked to take a look
at the animated sequence of Annie
Hall. The animation was created by
Chris Ishii and for some reason the
final product didn’t look right. Davis
took one look at it and realized that
it had been shot with the wrong
aspect ratio. The producers asked
Davis if he would not just assist in
the reshoot but if he would take
on the task himself. Which he did,
reshooting the sequence at 1.85:1
and saving a memorable scene in
the Oscar-winning film.
Over his long career, George
Davis has been recognized a
number of times by his peers,
receiving accolades from the Art
Directors Association, ASIFA East,
the Academy of Motion Picture Arts
and Sciences, and the Academy
of Television Arts and Sciences. All
this attention doesn’t really faze
Davis though. “I am not much of an
award guy,” he says in that perfect
straightforward, just-the-truth way
that has been his hallmark.
So after a nearly fifty-year career
that touched on practically every
outlet for animation, is there one
film or piece of work that he would
consider a favorite? The answer
is surprising: The 1991 film Don’t
Tell Mom The Babysitter’s Dead
wasn’t shot by Davis, but he did
shoot the title sequence. He singled
this work out because it was “a
challenge. There was a young girl,
the graphic designer who created
the piece on paper but she had no
idea how to lay it out for the camera
so I had to get down there with
her and say what if we try this or
that. It was a good thing that I had
the commercial artist background
because I could speak her language
as we created this thing.”
George Davis is no longer
an active cinematographer. He
recently retired and donated his
camera to the Rochester Institute
of Technology. He scoffs at the idea
that he was doing any good with
the donation: “I was just looking for
a tax writeoff,” he said with a gruff
laugh. His colleagues and his history
suggest something a little different,
that perhaps he donated his
equipment to do what he always did:
try and help out the next generation
of animation filmmakers.
“Studios have a way of
commending their voice talent...
directors... and even some of their
animators... but the guys and gals
behind the curtain... especially
camerapersons—are the unsung
heroes,” says Doug Compton.
“Terrytoons was very fortunate to
have had George Davis behind
their lenses. He was a professional,
a workhorse, a powerhouse at
the studio, and an inspiration to a
whole group of us beginners.” ¡
cover story»
What Is Anime?
Emru Townsend examines the question that has dogged the form for decades
Above: Depending on
how you slice it, Teen
Titans, Sky Blue and
Fragile Machine are all
anime. Or not.
The question of what is or isn’t
anime shouldn’t be important.
While we categorize other forms of
animation—Golden Age, full, limited,
stop-motion, clay—we don’t worry
too much about overlaps between
those categories, nor do we worry
too much if something doesn’t fit
where we expect it to.
And yet anime has long had an
undercurrent of exclusion in North
America. A good part of that comes
from the underground nature of its
early fan base. Entering as it did
through the portals of science-fiction
fandom (and, to a lesser degree,
cult movie fandom), otherness was
a prized trait. But otherness carries
with it two related aspects: exclusion
and assumed superiority. It wasn’t
(and, it sometimes seems, still isn’t)
that uncommon to hear people
blithely state that anime is inherently
superior to American animation,
Disney animation, or Saturdaymorning cartoons—whatever the
speaker’s aesthetic and thematic
fulcrum happened to be.
Such blanket statements invite
questioning, and of course people
did just that. For instance, while
the Japanese word anime refers
to animation, it’s used in the
English-speaking world to denote
Japanese animation. But what
does that mean? For almost half a
century, North American animation
production has been outsourced as
often as not. So are certain episodes
of Batman: The Animated Series to
be considered Japanese? Of course
not, said some; the directors of those
episodes weren’t Japanese.
But then some shows, like
Disney’s Gargoyles, gave directing
credit to the Japanese animators.
The response then comes that the
audience is crucial—anime is made
for Japanese audiences. It seems
like a clear dividing line—Dragonball
and My Neighbor Totoro are anime,
Gargoyles and Mighty Orbots are
not. But then you have to wonder;
as anime becomes a more global
force and Japanese studios start
working with companies from other
countries, how does that affect the
equation? The primary audience
may be Japanese, but as soon as
co-production enters the picture, it’s
assumed that a significant number
of people from outside Japan will
be watching. Consider Princess
Mononoke and Spirited Away, both
of which were made with partial
financing from Disney and with the
foreknowledge that they would be
screened outside of Japan.
Then there’s the strange case of
Little Nemo, an American production
that was entirely animated at
Tokyo Movie Shinsha for the North
American market, but languished
on American distributor shelves
while it was released in Japan.
Eventually it had a modest theatrical
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release in North America, before quietly
slipping away into a video release. While
Nemo was intended for an American
audience, its main audience for a time was
predominantly Japanese. What happens
when the actual audience differs from the
intended audience?
All of this pales in comparison to
recent events, such as the news that the
26-episode series Shiden, helmed by the
producer of such anime icons as Mach Go
Go Go, Gatchaman and Tetsuwan Atom
(aka Speed Racer, Battle of the Planets and
Astro Boy), has been created specifically
for the global market.
Given the resistance to including
independent films like the puppet
animation of Kihachiro Kawamoto or
the independent works of Osamu Tezuka
(ironically, the father of the modern anime
style) as anime, it seems that what people
are really focusing on but not saying
outright is that it’s really a matter of visual
style; anime, apparently, is defined by
its singular style, with boldly delineated
colours and characters with large eyes.
This accounts for the casual acceptance
of Korean films like Sky Blue and Mangchi
the Hammerboy being tagged as anime,
but just try suggesting that Cartoon
Network’s Teen Titans—fluffy Japanese pop
theme and all—is anime and you’re taking
your life into your hands. And yet a casual
look at the art and pop culture landscape
suggests that the anime aesthetic is
creeping into our decidedly non-Japanese
visual language. Cartoon Network’s
Megas XLR and Aoineko’s Fragile Machine
come from two different segments of the
commercial/art spectrum, but they both
use anime as their touchstone.
When you get to the point where your
definition tries to cover all your bases—a
particular look, directed and produced in
Japan, and seen by Japanese audiences as
intended—you start excluding things you’d
rather not. Akira, which is considered an
iconic anime film, would fail the test: its
characters don’t quite have the signature
anime look. At this point, the entire
exercise seems to be misguided.
That anime has grey areas is to be
expected; after all, there are no forms of
art, commercial or otherwise, that do not.
But for those who give in to the temptation
to seek purity in anime, a reminder: Tezuka
gave birth to the modern anime style
by applying the aesthetic of the Disney
and Fleischer animation he loved to his
manga work. It’s in the blending of forms
that dynamic new aesthetics are born. So
don’t look at the many exceptions to these
artificial rules as a headache; rather, look
at them as starting points for the new and
exciting. ¡
Anime Enquiries
Clearly, deciding what is and isn’t anime
is a tricky endeavour. We asked six people
for whom anime is more than just a hobby
where they drew the line.
Robert Woodhead
AnimEigo CEO and co-founder
Q: How do you define anime?
"I look upon anime as a why, not a what."
—Robert Woodhead, AnimEigo
co-founder and CEO
A: Films made in Japan using animation
instead of live action. Because of
budgetary constraints, a broad variety of
films that would have been made in liveaction in the US got made in animation
in Japan, and this spawned the genre. If
Lucas and Cameron had been born
Japanese, they’d have gotten their start
making anime. If Otomo had been born
in the US, he’d have become a live-action
director, and so on.
Q: So you don’t think aesthetic, medium
(say, stop-motion) or audience have
anything to do with what qualifies as
anime?
A: I look upon it more as a why, not a
what. Please understand that I’m trying to
be profound and obscure here!
Marc Hairston
Freelance writer
A: Defining “anime” depends on which side
of the Pacific you’re on. In Japan the word
“anime” is used to mean all animation
regardless of its style or country of origin.
So over there you have “Disney anime” or
“Simpsons anime.” Meanwhile over here in
North America, we’ve borrowed the word
to mean “any animation done in Japan.”
My working definition is that anime is
“any animated product created in Japan
primarily targeted at a Japanese audience
regardless whether it was intended for
export afterwards or not.”
Q: Does that definition include
independent films, like Osamu Tezuka’s
Jumping or Broken Down Film?
A: For those cases (and it’s been years
since I’ve seen either) Tezuka was definitely
trying to stretch the boundaries of the
medium and was going for a kind of pure
art film animation than a commercial
effort. So I would call those art films rather
than anime since, even though those
were produced in Japan by a Japanese
animator, they weren’t done primarily as a
Japanese commercial release.
Darren Dugan, Kyoko Kaneka, Ben
Steele and Sonja Xian
Aoineko creative collective, creators
of Fragile Machine
A: After much deliberation between
Darren, Ben, Sonja, and I, we had
concluded on this definition:
Anime as an infusion of animation with
Japan’s traditional woodblock prints and
calligraphic art forms and the European
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"I think the key factor that defines the
anime style is in its economy of frame
usage."
—Shuzo John Shiota, Polygon Pictures
President and CEO
Q: If economy of frame usage is key
to the definition, then what about
the new Appleseed? Or Akira, which
used more frames per shot and
pulled away from the large eyes and
spiked hair and used lip synch?
A: I guess with Akira, even though
graphic design lexicon. It is evident
they had the luxury of using more
by its identifiable visual iconography Shuzo John Shiota
frames, it kept with the tradition of
(exaggeration of bodily and facial
using dynamic framing and poses to
President and CEO, Polygon
features, higher emphasis on line),
get the point across. So I consider it
Pictures
amplified illustrations of humanity,
an anime with frills.
and intricate, often continuous,
Appleseed was a stab at trying to
story structures. Anime stories
deviate from the normal anime style.
are best identified by the dualistic
A: I think the key factor that defines As much as it was a try at coming
shonen, masculine action, and shojo, the anime style is in its economy
up with a new look, it was also trying
feminine love and adventure—both
to come up with a new production
of frame usage. Due to budgetary
characteristic of Onna-e and Otoko-e restrictions, Japanese animators
process. Honestly though, I wish
stories during the Heian era.
they had stuck to the traditional
had to be frugal and use as few
I certainly hope this answer is
frames as possible when composing processes, since the CGI facial rigs
satisfactory. It was quite an involved a shot. This gave birth to the poseusing anime designs and the overall
debate we had over anime here
motion capture just didn’t work.
to-pose kind of extremely limited
at Aoineko’s HQ, ranging from
Speaking of films like Akira and
animation prevalent in anime. Also,
historic and cultural ties to visual
Appleseed, another key element that
the big features of the face (large
expressions of space and figure.
defines some anime are the more
eyes, spiked hair, open and shut lip
synch) are closely knit with this sort adult-oriented, often complicated
Ryoko Toyama
themes that they represent. Due to
of style, since they can efficiently
Japanese animation fan
convey emotions in the least amount the generally smaller film market,
Japanese films do not have the
of movement. It was rather easy
budget to depict larger themes
for the Japanese to come up with
in live-action. That is why many
this sort of style, as they merely
A: “Anime” for me is just animation. carry on the tradition of old art
talented filmmakers resort to
Disney, CG, clay animation are
styles such as kabuki or Noh, which animation where they have the
all anime to me, though I usually
convey complicated story lines with freedom to depict their themes at a
differentiate them by calling them
grander scale. You ask a lot of the
minimum movement and sets.
Disney anime, CG anime, or clay
popular animation directors (like
anime.
Mamoru Oshii or Hideaki Anno)
what their real love is, and they
would tell you that they would like
to shoot film. Had they been born
American, I know for sure that they
would have been directing live-action
films.
Andrew Osmond
Freelance writer
A: I usually think of any animation
made in Japan as anime—and
yes, I know the production is often
in Korea—whether it’s Jumping,
Doraemon, Legend of the Overfiend
or My Neighbor Totoro. I’m a bit
inconsistent on co-productions. On
the one hand, I have no trouble
with Japanese-French SF efforts
like Ulysses 31. However, while I
know Little Nemo arguably counts
as “anime,” it’s just too darn
Disneyesque for me! (I like the Little
Nemo film much more than most
critics, though it has nothing to do
with the sublime McCay strip.)
I know the Japanese use the word
“anime” for animation worldwide,
although the usage seems to be
close to the English word “cartoon”—
that is, some Japanese people I’ve
spoken to seem reluctant to apply
the “anime” label to, say, Shrek,
Princess Mononoke or Snow White,
which they see as different kinds of
work. But it’s probably not worth
getting too hung up about it. ¡
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The Coolest Thing Right Now
Polygon Pictures honcho Shuzo John Shiota sees through the hype
Above: Mamoru
Oshii's Ghost in the
Shell 2: Innocence;
Hayao Miyazaki's
Porco Rosso; Katsuhiro
Otomo's Steamboy.
Whenever I travel abroad and tell
my chance acquaintance that I
produce CG animation in Japan, I
usually get a nod of respect. They
may tell me, “Ah, my kids just love
anime!” or “Isn’t it the coolest
thing now?” I have heard that the
Museum of Modern Art in New
York is planning to do a blockbuster
exhibition on anime this summer.
With all this exposure worldwide, no
wonder most people think that our
industry is doing quite well.
Well, a week before this writing, I
had the opportunity to preside over
a student animation contest along
with Fumihiko Sori, producer of the
widely acclaimed CG anime film
Appleseed, and Toyokazu Hattori,
producer at Toei Animation. We went
into a long conversation lamenting
the general state of our industry and
its lack of foresight. In a way, our
sentiments exemplify those shared
by “enlightened” professionals.
Contrary to what other people
think, we really haven’t realized the
worldwide marketing potential of
our properties, and so we usually
don’t look beyond Japan to promote
our materials. Meanwhile, animation
creators in countries like Korea,
who have grown up embracing our
manga and anime, are creating
their own brand of anime, but
targeted toward the rest of the
world. The competition, coupled with
a supportive government, is serious.
Can Japan face the challenge? In my
view, we are currently a stagnant
industry lacking the dynamism to
turn itself around.
Why is this happening?
The biggest reason is a lack of
business savvy and versatility on the
part of most animation producers.
As it stands, anime exposure is
almost entirely reliant on the
domestic television market. Sure,
Hayao Miyazaki, Katsuhiro Otomo
and Mamoru Oshii can target their
creations for feature films, but few
others enjoy such privilege. As such,
it is absolutely essential for your
property to get decent exposure
on the airwaves in order to build
any sort of business. However, it
takes an animation producer a lot
of money to get his property on the
air. In addition to actual production
Hayao Miyazaki,
Katsuhiro Otomo and
Mamoru Oshii can
target their creations
for feature films, but
few others enjoy such
privilege.
cover story»
costs, most often producers would
have to finance the airwaves on
which to broadcast their shows. This
is why many shows are so strongly
intertwined with toy makers, games
and manga publishers. Not only do
these sponsors pay for commercial
slots, often times they pitch in
production money as well. This
system tends to make an animation
series a vehicle for selling toys,
games and manga, rather than a
medium to tell a story and compel
its audiences. Perhaps it’s a chicken
and egg thing, but this tendency
to disregard actual content has
shown up in the video sector of late,
as current shows typically only sell
about 10,000 videos or DVDs per
volume. Ironically, this increases
the producer’s reliance on sales of
merchandise, in order to recoup
costs.
For those producers who do not
have access to a property that is
based on a popular manga or game,
there are very few inroads by which
to produce a show. In response to
the tough competition, more and
more turn to content that caters
to a niche. With such content, the
production budget is minuscule at
best, and you’re lucky if you have it
broadcast on a midnight slot or any
of the cable channels. The upside is
that at least you have a vague idea
of who will be buying your product.
The downside is that your business
never grows beyond that niche.
There seem to be more titles out, but
somehow the market seems to be
shrinking as a whole.
Is this scheme working? Barely.
It is said that the average income
of Japanese animators with six to
seven years of experience hovers
somewhere around USD$30,000 a
year, and I think this is an optimistic
number. Contrary to all the hype
anime is getting all over the world,
life isn’t getting any easier for
most animators. As far as they’re
concerned, being an animator isn’t
“the coolest thing in the world.”
Another frustrating aspect
(especially for me) is the Japanese
market’s hesitancy toward accepting
the medium of digital animation.
Except for Pixar films and possibly
Shrek, CG animation just hasn’t
caught on in Japan. I don’t think
it’s a matter of taste, but more
because our TV-centred market just
can’t support the extra cost. The
production budget for a 30-minute
animation show would run anywhere
between $50,000 to $120,000 at
best. Sure, there are your Production
IGs and your Gonzos that may
command a greater budget, but
most of the 80-plus shows that get
created every season would fall
under this category. Creating a CG
show under such a budget would
either be impossible or meaningless
since it necessitates a plethora of
compromises resulting in less than
sub-par results.
So what do we need to do? We
need to look outward. We need to
actually “feel” the accolades given
to the art of anime, and know that
there is a bigger market out there
waiting for us. We need more
producers with a good command
of English willing to go out and
create better business, arrange
co-productions and bring more
money into the industry. We need
government policies that will entice
more investment and co-productions
in Japan. Most importantly, we need
to bring our artists out into the open.
We need to find a way to retain
the exoticism of their ideas while
creating a story that is relatable to
the rest of the world. ¡
Left: Korean projects
like Mangchi the
Hammerboy and Sky
Blue are creating their
own brand of anime;
Appleseed is one
of Japan's few CG
animation productions.
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Hot Air
After eight years of waiting, René
Walling finds Katsuhiro Otomo's
followup to Akira lacking
Steamboy
Directed by Katsuhiro Otomo
Sony Pictures Entertainment,
2005
126 minutes
I remember my reaction years ago
when I first saw an Akira poster
hanging in the lobby of my local
repertory cinema: a friend of mine
and I just kept saying (well, okay,
screaming worshipfully) “Akira!!!
Akira!!! Akira!!!” over and over
again, much to the bemusement
of witnesses who had no clue who
or what Akira was. And, after an
exciting movie experience, we all
wondered what Otomo would come
up with next.
Turns out we had to hang on
quite a while to find out, and,
much like Star Wars, the long
wait for Steamboy has dulled the
anticipation a bit. Or maybe it’s the
fact that I don’t have 2,000 pages
of manga to whet my appetite, or
that theatrical releases of anime are
relatively common these days, or
maybe I’m just getting older. In any
case, while my excitement was more
contained, I still expected something
out of the ordinary from Steamboy.
And, in many ways, the film delivers:
the images are beautiful, the effects
astounding and the action almost
non-stop.
Set in 1851 England, a time and
place when technological optimism
was at an all-time high, it’s the
story of Ray Steam, a young boy
whose father and grandfather are
both eccentric inventors. Ray must
keep the Steamball, an incredible
source of power, away from evil
corporations and the military. To
complicate matters, who the good
guys are is unclear.
This last development may not
be only because that’s what the
plot calls for. With all the action,
most characters are barely sketched
out, and even Ray is very twodimensional. The other characters
lack the depth needed for us to
either empathize with them or even
have a clue as to what motivates
them. Most of them can be defined
in a three-word sound bite: halfcrazy eccentric inventor, enthusiastic
young apprentice, smooth-talking
corporate salesman, stiff-upperlipped officer, and so on. Scarlett
O’Hara, the only female character
(except Ray’s mother and sisters who
aren’t seen after the start of the film
and a very disappointing cameo
by Queen Victoria), is also the best
defined. Unfortunately, she is also
the most unpleasant, self-centred
and vain character I have seen in a
long time. It was quite disappointing
when by the end of the film she
didn’t get her comeuppance.
While some scenes are
priceless—the one where phlegmatic
Englishmen are having tea in the
midst of battle comes to mind—it’s
just not enough to make the
characters come alive with all the
chaos and mayhem around them. All
the machinery, whether in operation
or being destroyed, is overwhelming.
More attention seems to have been
placed on the machines, creating
that particular aesthetic proper to
an imagined cutting-edge Victorian
technology (think Jules Verne) than
anything else. Valves, levers and
gears are seen constantly and steam
and smoke effects are almost always
present, giving you the feeling you’re
missing half the action because of
them.
The film is filled with the fantastic
destruction of massive steampowered machines, each of which
is larger and more unlikely than the
previous one. At first the machines
run relatively smoothly, but as time
goes by they either break down and
grind to a halt or meet spectacular,
explosive ends. The film follows the
same pattern; it is itself a huge
machine that comes crashing out
of the gate and then slowly breaks
down, sputtering to a disappointing
end, and barely making it to the end
credits.
Steamboy’s weakest areas are
story and character development,
but story isn’t necessarily the main
reason to go see it. Style, effects and
action are what this film is about and
it certainly delivers all of that. ¡
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Not the Apple of My Eye
headlights of an oncoming car) if not
for the scene-deadening characters.
Appleseed
But maybe that’s what invoked
Directed by Shinji Aramaki
the likeness to a video game.
Geneon Entertainment, 2005
I won’t get into the storyline or
Originally released in 2004
plot—there’s a million places you
105 minutes
can read about that. There are many
things to like about this movie, and if
I’m sure there are legions of fans
you are the type of person who likes
that will absolutely love Appleseed,
a movie regardless of the calibre of
especially the ones whose knees go
actor, then you might really enjoy
weak during the cut scenes in any
the ride in Appleseed, especially
popular video game. In fact, I often
with its fast pace and contemporary
thought while watching this bigsoundtrack.
budget anime feature that parts of it
But those characters...
looked an awful lot like a good Xbox
Here’s the deal: Appleseed is
game.
billed as a new and sophisticated
That’s not to say it didn’t
style that seamlessly blends 2D
look good. On the contrary,
and 3D animation. True that
Appleseed is a visual beauty, with
it’s seamless, but the reason
some breathtaking visuals and
it’s seamless is because the 2D
remarkable detail. The contrived
characters are really 3D characters.
story might even be overlooked
And this is where they went wrong.
thanks to the lavish backgrounds
Did I mention how beautifully
and environments (the same tunnel
rendered everything was? Any frame
vision you get when staring at the
of this film would make a really nice
poster on the wall. But a poster on
the wall isn’t the same as characters
in motion, and characters put into
motion alone doesn’t bring them to
life.
In many scenes, the characters
seem to run through the motions of
playing out a scene, with movement
that seems floaty and ill-timed.
Living, breathing characters should
punctuate their movements, not
perform them by rote.
A better example of well-blended
traditional 2D and computer 3D
animation can be seen in The
Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury,
the 30-minute bridge film linking the
feature films Pitch Black and The
Chronicles of Riddick. Directed by
Peter Chung of Æon Flux fame, Dark
Fury has characters that have far
greater emotional range and appeal
than the cast of Appleseed.
Although Dark Fury doesn’t
have Appleseed’s lavish attention
to detail and rich layout, it’s a more
enjoyable and engaging film. The
characters are quick, snappy and
well-defined. When Riddick throws a
punch, we feel it, and when he walks
away tilting his head from side to
side cracking his neck, we feel that.
These movements work because
the animators can exaggerate the
motion, stretch the lines, play with
the shape of the characters, with an
ease that’s hard to achieve when
animating a 3D character. It’s not
impossible to do it in 3D, just harder.
A pencil line on a page lends itself
to exaggeration. A wireframe model
tilts toward the physical—the real.
Breaking the rules of composition
and motion in 3D so that it looks
more like 2D can be done, but it
isn’t the default setting for many
new-generation animators, those
who have never animated with a
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The pinscreen films include Night
on Bald Mountain (1933), animated
to the familiar Mussorgsky music;
En Passant (1944), made for the
National Film Board of Canada
(NFB); The Nose (1963), based on
the short story by Gogol; Pictures
at an Exhibition (1972) and Three
Moods (1980), both animated to
Mussorgsky musical pieces. Night
on Bald Mountain is in the roughest
shape; the photography is muddy
and the film shows wear. En Passant
might the most crowd-pleasing of the
films, as it is the most fast-paced and
humourous.
Alexeïeff’s commercial work was
stop-motion animation that was
fairly typical of the time. European
commercials for the cinema were
pencil. Appleseed is a great example raised or lowered individually. When explaining the techniques of the
often for radios or cigarettes (why
of powerful tools in the hands of a
the pinscreen has a light shining on pinscreen, as well as stop-motion
are they always marching?) and
new generation. I’d like to see more it, the raised pins cast shadows. The work for commercials.
from the creators of it, but only after more a pin is raised, the longer the
Alexeïeff worked as an etcher and were made in colour. One interesting
technique of Alexeïeff’s was to
they spend a year or two watching
shadow and so the darker the area
illustrator before trying animation,
photograph pendulums in motion
Golden Age Looney Tunes shorts, a
of the screen. In a way, the pinscreen and his work definitely reflects
with long exposures, so that their
couple of the better Disney features, is a precursor to a bitmapped
that background. His films are
patterns of movement created
and just about any Pixar film. ¡ Mike computer screen. Each pin is the
more interested in settings and the
abstract designs.
Caputo
equivalent of a pixel that can be set interplay of light and shade than
The documentary footage includes
to a value between black and white. they are in character animation.
a 39-minute film made for the NFB
Alexandre Alexeïeff (1901–1982) The films have a dreamlike quality,
Pinscreen Gems
in 1973 where Alexeïeff and Parker
and Claire Parker (1906–1981) were as they are often slowly paced and
the inventors and main practitioners contain metamorphoses and stylized explain how to work the pinscreen in
great detail to the staff of the NFB
Cinédoc Paris Films Coop, 2005 of pinscreen animation. Alexeïeff
character movement. Besides
animation unit in Montreal. Visible in
137 minutes
was born in Russia but emigrated
animation, Alexeïeff used the
to France at the time of the Russian pinscreen to illustrate books as well. the film are Norman McLaren, Grant
Munro, Ryan Larkin, and Caroline
Of all the devices used to create
Revolution in 1917. Parker, his wife
The DVD includes a documentary
Leaf. As Alexeïeff explains in the film,
animation, the pinscreen is unique.
and collaborator, was an American. from 1960 on creating illustrations
“You don’t draw on a pinboard; you
It consists of a base that holds tens
This DVD collects their films using
for an edition of Dr. Zhivago.
paint. With pressure.” The variety of
of thousands of pins that can be
the pinscreen, documentary footage
reviews»
tools used to create patterns and shapes
with the pins is quite fascinating. Small
rollers with raised textures were used to
create patterns on the screen. Flat shapes
could be pressed against the screen with
uneven pressure to create gradations of
tone. The DVD includes Mindscape (1976),
a pinscreen film made at the NFB by
Jacques Drouin, who no doubt benefited
from contact with Alexeïeff and Parker.
It’s a shame that this DVD is only
available in PAL format, making it
incompatible with the NTSC players
produced in North America and Japan.
Alexeïeff and Parker have a very distinctive
technique and design approach and
deserve a wider audience. Work like this
is a reminder of how flexible and wideranging the animation medium is.
DVD Features: English and French
menus; Region 2 (PAL).
DVD Extras: Gallery of photos,
engravings and pinscreen tools. ¡ Mark
Mayerson
different, and not just because of its arctic
setting.
A polar bear, distraught by the loss
of her cub, is inconsolable. To relieve her
grief, her mate steals a human child to
replace the dead cub. The boy grows up
learning the ways of the bears, until his
human father shows up to take him back.
Unlike Mowgli, who uses his humanity
to defeat Shere Khan, Little Bear uses his
“bearness” to overcome the challenges
facing him. He is also more convincing
as a feral child than Disney’s rendition of
Mowgli was. A perennially hungry raven
with landing problems acts as the requisite
sidekick and provides some comic relief.
Luckily, the irritation factor is mercifully
low.
Most of the other characters are also
well realized, with none of their emotions
overplayed. The mother bear, caring
and nurturing, becomes fierce when her
“son” is endangered by wolves and all of
it is believable as coming from the same
character.
Beary Tale
In keeping with the subtlety of the
The Boy Who Wanted to Be a Bear
characters, a simple soundtrack and
Collector's Edition
minimalist backgrounds underscore the
Directed by Jannik Hastrup
harshness of the arctic environment
Central Park Media, 2005
in which the bears live. The character
Originally released in 2002
design is also simple, and strengthens
75 minutes
the animation. The death of the bear cub,
a truly tragic and beautifully animated
With a plot reminiscent of The Jungle Book scene, will leave few untouched. The
(a young boy growing up with animals
computer, misused in so many films, is
must eventually choose between the
used to great effect here; the peculiar
human and animal worlds) The Boy Who
perspectives it provides enhance how alien
Wanted to Be a Bear is nevertheless quite human constructions feel to the bearraised boy.
Rated for all ages, parental presence
during screening is suggested for younger
children. This is a film that touches young
children closely, dealing as it does with
family ties. Several scenes can be scary;
the confrontation between the bears and
the wolves are not played down, and while
we do not see the humans and bears kill
animals, we clearly do see the results of
the hunt.
Jannik Hastrup has delivered a fine
children’s film that is also entertaining for
their parents. It also does not pretend that
the more unpleasant side of the story is
not there—a condescending attitude that
diminishes so many other films.
DVD Features: 1.66:1 aspect ratio,
English and French language tracks;
English subtitles; Region 1
DVD Extras: Theatrical and DVD
trailers; interviews with English cast;
background information on story and
production staff; art gallery. ¡ René
Walling
Legal Eagle
Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law
Vol. 1
Warner Home Video, 2005
Originally broadcast in 2000
154 minutes
Like our editor, I’m a member of the
generation that grew up on the limited
animation of Hanna-Barbera. Harvey
Birdman takes the Birdman character
we grew up with and makes him a goofy
lawyer type. He first has The Mighty
Mightor as a judge, then a former villain,
Mentok. He competes with lawyers
Reducto, Freezoid and Vulturo, all former
villains in the original cartoons.
All are played with the humour and
situations stretched to an extreme familiar
to Adult Swim viewers. The show starts
with a custody case launched by Race
Bannon to get the children of longtime
“companion” Professor Quest. Then there’s
the “mystery” of potential marijuana use
by Scooby-Doo and Shaggy in the Mystery
Machine van and later, the use of DingA-Ling’s name for a porn site. Reducto
has a fetish for small things, Vulturo gets
unintelligible, and Freezoid makes his own
cases as potential clients slip on the ice
patches he creates.
The animation style is as limited as the
original cartoons, except that the Attorney
at Law creators began to use Macromedia
Flash starting with the Dingaling episode.
The series is full of running jokes (“manly
kiss,” a bear in every episode, surprise
appearances by other classic HannaBarbera characters) and some gags
adult viewers from our generation can
appreciate more. In the Ding-A-Ling
episode, for example, one of the prime
defendants is a man in a wheelchair
wearing a flag as a diaper; from his voice,
it’s clear he represents Larry Flynt of
Hustler notoriety.
I have to admit, the show didn’t appeal
to me much during the first few episodes.
After a few more, however, the humour
became addictive, to the point where
the crude animation style faded from my
mind. The dialogue and the appearance
reviews»
of classic characters warped beyond
belief hooked me in.
What makes this series work
is the ironic parody of childhood
nostalgia. These characters were
innocent parts of our youthscape;
in Harvey Birdman, they are taken
to extreme conclusions. (The Scooby
and Shaggy bit comes to mind.
Admit it: as you got older, you
always wondered if they were thinly
disguised druggies.)
The two-disc DVD set comes
in an interesting package: the
outer cover is that of a legal case
book, and the two discs (thirteen
episodes) are placed in a shell like
the pages within it—complete with
“coffee stains,” text scratched out
(by Harvey’s assistant Peanut, who
is possibly the strangest character
of the series), photo stills and sticky
notes. Four of the episodes also have
commentary tracks, including one
from Time Warner Standards and
Practices on the episode for Devlin,
an Evel Knievel clone Hanna-Barbera
created in 1974.
Considering there are thirteen
episodes, it’s a bit disappointing
that only four of them have
commentaries. Plus, outside of a
small amount of deleted scenes for
two episodes, this two-disc set has
no extras worth mentioning. With
all the characters drawn from old
shows, it would have been nice to at
least hear comments along the lines
of “This character came from suchand-such a show.” Us older folks
don’t have perfect memories, after
all.
DVD Features: Original 1.33:
1 aspect ratio; English language
track; English, French and Spanish
subtitles; Region 1.
DVD Extras: Commentaries;
deleted scenes; live-action opening;
movie trailer; casting what-ifs; pencil
tests; photo gallery. ¡ Jeff Boman
Still Kon-founding
Paranoia Agent Vol. 3: Serial
Psychosis
Directed by Satoshi Kon
Geneon Entertainment, 2005
Originally broadcast in 2004
75 minutes
Satoshi Kon’s Paranoia Agent
continues its surreal ride through
modern-day Japan in this volume
collecting episodes 8 to 10 of the
series. Lil’ Slugger, a boy on golden
inline skates, is attacking people with
an equally golden baseball bat. At
the start of the series he first attacks
a woman who’s struggling to design
a new Hello-Kittyesque character
after her previous character,
Maromi, was a huge success.
The two police detectives sent to
investigate disbelieve her at first but
as more attacks happen they realize
that something very strange is going
on.
Anyone familiar with the previous
work of director Satoshi Kon,
specifically his films Perfect Blue
and Millennium Actress, should
know just how wonderfully strange
his work can be. Here paired with
screenwriter Seishi Minakami, who
was a writer on the equally weird
Boogiepop Phantom TV series, Kon
seems to have an outlet for any
and every strange story idea he
has. From people vomiting algebra
functions to turning into unpainted
cel animation, Paranoia Agent is
anything but normal.
The three episodes on this DVD
leave behind the main characters
of the previous volumes to instead
focus on how Lil’ Slugger’s legend
is effecting other people’s lives.
Whether these episodes are just filler
or will have some deeper impact on
the main storyline will depend on
the final episodes in the next volume.
Until then, these episodes work well
on their own. It is disappointing to
not see what happened to the police
detectives after the events of the
previous volume, but these episodes
remain interesting without them.
Episode 8, “Happy Family
Planning,” follows three people who
have made a suicide pact over the
Internet. When they finally meet face
to face for the first time, two of them
realize one of the basic problems with
the Internet: You never know when
someone you’re chatting with is a 10year-old girl.
What follows is a comedy about
two people trying to commit suicide
while making sure a young girl
doesn’t. Certainly not the easiest
subject to laugh at but it’s well done.
I did have to watch the end of the
episode twice in order to understand
what finally happened though, so pay
attention.
Episode 9, “Etc.,” is a collection of
stories told by a group of gossiping
women about what Lil’ Slugger has
been up to recently. As the stories
reviews»
become more and more unbelievable, we
see just what some people will do in order
to tell a good Lil’ Slugger story.
Some of these stories are told in
different styles; the sad romantic story
has stereotypical shoujo anime character
designs while another looks like an anime
from the 70s, complete with film grain and
dust. This series continues to impress me
with the wide range of animation styles
used.
The final episode of this volume,
“Mellow Maromi,” follows an anime studio
as they try to produce a series based on
Maromi, the character created by the first
victim of Lil’ Slugger. This episode acts
as a behind-the-scenes view of what it
takes to make an anime series, as it gives
brief descriptions of each character’s job
position. It’s also an anime studio’s worst
nightmare as Lil’ Slugger starts attacking
the production staff as the first episode’s
deadline looms.
The animation throughout this series
has been as good as television animation
can get. This volume continues some
particularly good character animation in
the first episode, although a crying scene
with the young girl doesn’t quite look right.
The directing also remains as interesting
and surprising as it was in the first volume.
Kon never seems to run out of new ways of
telling stories.
Much of this series’ final impact will
rest on the last volume and what, if any,
answers it gives. This volume’s episodes,
while not seeming to further the main
plot, still maintain the high quality that
you’d expect from this series. I highly
recommend it to anyone interested in
mature, adult-oriented anime.
DVD Features: 1.78:1 aspect ratio;
English and Japanese language tracks;
English subtitles; Region 1.
DVD Extras: Art gallery. ¡ Scott
Schmeisser
Animated Conversations
Chuck Jones: Conversations
Edited by Maureen Furniss
University Press of Mississippi, 2005
215 pages
Never pass up a
chance to give one
of your heroes a
standing ovation,
because you never
know how long they
will be around for
you to celebrate.
About a decade
ago, I attended an
event at the Rialto repertory cinema on
Montreal’s Parc Avenue. At that time,
renowned cartoon director Chuck Jones
was in the midst of a long-overdue critical
revival of his place in film and comedy
history, capped by the release of the first
volume of his autobiography. During the
event, Jones spoke a few words, answered
some questions and enjoyed with us
a special selection of his finest shorts,
highlighted by classics such as Bully for
Bugs, What’s Opera, Doc?, One Froggy
Evening, and at least one of his many
Road Runner films. Seeing the shorts on
the big screen after a lifetime of the Bugs
Bunny/Road Runner Hour was a thrill, and
the great man’s anecdotes and speaking
style were charming and informative.
But the main reason I was there was to
stand up and give Chuck Jones a rousing,
heartfelt ovation, a simple thank-you
from a devoted fan who had derived
incalculable pleasure—if not a complete
world view—from his cartoons. As I stood
and applauded with a couple hundred of
my fellow Montrealers, I spotted a friend
(coincidentally, the editor of this magazine)
across the aisle, and we knew we were
both there for the very same reason.
Some years later, this same friend
and editor made a contact at Jones’
production company (I still have the
business card, complete with full-color
cel of Elmer and Bugs in full pas-de-deux
from What’s Opera, Doc?, on my office
bulletin board), and offered me the chance
to conduct a telephone interview with
Chuck Jones himself. Despite the depth
of my admiration for Jones (or perhaps
because of it), I panicked, and turned
the opportunity down, certain I would
end up simply slavering over the poor
octogenarian until I put him to sleep
before I could get a question in. My regrets
over my cowardice would have made
“not passing up the chance to interview
one of your heroes” my second piece of
advice to fps readers, were it not for this
small book from Maureen Furniss and
the University Press of Mississippi. Chuck
Jones: Conversations not only filled in what
I might have learned from Jones about
his work, but also revealed the warmth
and wit he clearly possessed, even into his
eighties, and which I now wish I could have
experienced for myself.
The twelve interviews that make up this
book were conducted over a thirty-year
period, by people ranging from established
animation experts to Los Angeles deejays.
He shares some anecdotes that can
already be found in his autobiographies,
but the true treasure trove in this collection
for the Jones scholar is in his discussion
of his work, and his revelations about
the personalities he worked with—and
sometimes against. Long regarded as the
most intellectual of the classic cartoon
directors, he lives up to that billing here,
with his psychological dissection of the
motivations of his favourite Looney Tunes
characters, and the glimpses he offers of
the artistic sensibility behind work that
was originally designed as music videos for
Warner’s library of songs, and which many
once dismissed as little more than frivolous
distractions for children.
In many of these conversations, Jones
explains that he finds the inspiration for his
characters in aspects of himself, from the
cool rabbit he describes as the ultimate
“counter-revolutionary,” to the craven
duck, the fanatical coyote and the hapless
owner of a temperamental singing frog.
“I dream about being Bugs Bunny,” Jones
often admits, “but when I wake up, I’m
Daffy Duck.” He discusses the disciplines
and limitations that seem to have inspired
some of his greatest creativity, such as
the “rules” which governed the Road
Runner cartoons, and the fact that he and
his fellow directors were able to time out
reviews»
their cartoons to a precise length
of 540 feet in their heads before
committing any actual drawings to
film. Like many successful artists,
he claims to have never designed a
project to please anyone but himself
and his peers—not the audience,
nor the theatre managers, and
most especially not the executives
who signed his paycheques (while
attempting to frustrate his every
creative move). His primary concern,
despite his cerebral sensibilities,
was to make himself and his friends
laugh, and he was convinced that if
they laughed at what they saw, we
all would too.
He reserves special respect
for several of these peers, such as
writer Mike Maltese (“the ultimate
gagman”), designer Maurice Noble
(“of all the people I’ve worked with,
the most influential”) and animator
Ken Harris (“an extremely versatile
actor”). He is surprisingly cool
about voice actor Mel Blanc (“Mel
didn’t write his dialogue, I did”), and
about some of his fellow directors,
confessing his incomprehension of
Bob Clampett, and claiming Robert
McKimson was “unable to get inside
his characters.” But he reserves his
greatest vitriol for the executives
who ran the Warner cartoon studio;
first the greedy would-be mogul
Leon Schlesinger, then later the
humourless accountant Eddie Selzer.
Jones also reveals himself to be
absolutely indignant with Richard
Schickel’s portrayal of Walt Disney
as a simple “businessman”—Jones
believes Disney was a “visionary,”
despite their differing sensibilities.
The tone of Jones’ conversation
changes in proportion to the
animation knowledge of the
interviewer. When talking to Joe
Adamson or Michael Barrier, he
will delve into great detail about his
intentions about each character and
film, sometimes matching their own
seemingly encyclopaedic knowledge
of his cartoons’ titles and gags.
However, in a panel setting with
other creative peers such as Ray
Bradbury, or in an L.A. radio booth,
he becomes breezier and wittier,
unable to resist going for the laugh.
When asked for the umpteenth
time which of the characters he has
directed is his favourite, he channels
his hero Mark Twain with a classic
response: “If you have more than
one child, there will always be one
that’s your favourite, but you’d
better keep that to yourself.”
Due to their unedited nature,
these conversations often cover
the same ground, especially
during the ever-increasing waves
of interviews he conducted later in
life, as his work was finally being
given the recognition it deserved.
This repetition, and the fact that the
detail of these conversations is best
appreciated with substantial prior
knowledge of the cartoons and the
people involved, render this book
of interest mainly to the animation
scholar, and the dedicated fan. Those
wishing for more of an overview of
Jones’ life and work would be better
served by a combination of his
lavishly illustrated autobiographies
and Leonard Maltin’s excellent
cartoon industry histories. But for
those of us who count Jones as
one of our heroes, this collection
is an invaluable resource, and a
comprehensive look at the mind and
work of a man who not only made us
laugh, but who subversively infused
our childhood diversions with subtle
satire, psychological acuity and the
most enjoyably inaccurate physics
lessons we will ever experience. ¡
Marc Elias
Where to Get It
How to find the titles mentioned in this issue
Akira
Appleseed
The Boy Who Wanted to Be a Bear
Chuck Jones: Conversations
Fragile Machine
Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law Vol. 1
Jumping*
Little Nemo
My Neighbor Totoro
Paranoia Agent Vol. 3: Serial Psychosis
Princess Mononoke
Robotech
Schoolhouse Rock
Teen Titans
Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Aoineko
Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Cinédoc
Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Amazon.ca
Amazon.ca
Amazon.ca
Amazon.ca
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.ca
CD Japan
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.ca
Amazon.ca
Amazon.ca
Amazon.ca
Amazon.ca
Amazon.ca
Amazon.ca
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.co.uk
closing credits»
Jeff Boman is a 37-year old
freelance writer and a graduate of
Concordia University’s Animation
program.
business. He is the creator of the
CGI children’s series Monster By
Mistake. Mark recently taught
animation at Sheridan College and
will be working towards a Master's
degree at York University starting
this fall.
Mike Caputo lives and works in
New York City (Staten Island, to be
exact) as a 2D and 3D animator,
as well as a producer for corporate
Scott Schmeisser is a computer
video productions. He’s been happily programmer in the videogame
writing for fps since the early 1990s. industry. In his spare time he
plays guitar in a punk band and,
Marc Elias is an art director and
unsurprisingly, also plays video
animation enthusiast living in
games. He has a beautiful wife who Next Issue:
Montreal, Canada. He once gave
likes anime and comic books almost
Chuck Jones a standing ovation.
as much as he does. Yeah, his life is
pretty much perfect.
Noell Wolfgram Evans is a
freelance writer living in Columbus, Shuzo John Shiota is the president
Ohio. Winner of the 2002 Thurber
and CEO of Polygon Pictures in
Treat Award, he enjoys a number
Tokyo.
of things, mainly laughing with his
family.
Emru Townsend sees the
connections between anime and
Carl Gustav Horn is co-author of
American animation, stop-motion
Japan Edge from Cadence, and the and CGI, art and the industry,
forthcoming Strange Colors: The
the fiercely independent and the
Power of Japanese Animation from
relentlessly commercial. He has been
Dark Horse. His heavy essay, “This
preaching his Unified Animation
Model Comes with Genuine Sorrow” Theory since 1989, and is the
appeared in the recent Ghost in the founding editor of fps.
Shell 2: Innocence ani-manga box
set, and a rather lighter piece on
A longtime animation fan, René
Shojo Beat in the June 2005 issue of Walling was the driving force
Wired.
behind fps for a number of years
during Emru Townsend’s hiatus.
Mark Mayerson lives in Toronto,
He is very happy to be back in the
Ontario, Canada and has worked for passenger seat.
more than 25 years in the animation
Women in Animation
(Including the ones
behind the scenes.)
June 28
the last word»
The Essence of Anime
To Carl Gustav Horn, the answer is simple—it's Japanese animation
As a general rule, anime can be simply
defined as animation whose principal
creators are Japanese, and which is
produced through Japanese studios. It’s
Japanese animation—to coin a mint-fresh
phrase.
This should be obvious; when it comes
to live-action film, for example, we don’t
have so much of a problem saying that
Japanese live-action movies can be
considered in a separate category from,
say, Korean, American, or French liveaction movies. “The language of cinema is
universal,” the trailer says—and there are
no necessary barriers to people enjoying
other cultures’ films, or for film creators
to communicate with, and influence each
other. Nevertheless, as Samuel L. Jackson
would put it, “But you are aware that
there’s these things called ‘cultures,’ and
that they’re different.”
Different as anime are from each
other, or different as anime creators are,
or different even as the same creator’s
work may be from another (Hols vs. My
Neighbors the Yamadas, Royal Space
Force vs. Mahoromatic, Roujin Z vs. Blood),
anime’s identity yet comes from within a
different common culture—not only the
broadly different general culture of Japan,
which gives rise to different aesthetic
notions, but the specifically different
subculture of filmmaking—practices,
techniques, budgets—within the anime
industry.
Move John Woo from Kowloon to Los
Angeles and it’s not the same. Have an
indie director move to the major studios
and it’s not the same. Not necessarily
worse, not necessarily bad. Maybe even
better, sometimes and in some ways. But
not the same. Change the elements in the
creation and production of the film, and
you change the film. We love the fantasy
that anime can bring. It seems excessively
greedy of us to want to fantasize, too,
that we can make anime, just because we
want to call it that—even if we’re neither
Japanese nor working within the Japanese
industry (a possible route to anime
for a foreign creator—Jan-Scott Frazier
demonstrated it).
To take the example of live-action again:
even if you’re not Japanese, you might
be a director inspired by the films of Kinji
Fukasaku or Beat Takeshi, and make your
own movie displaying homage to their
style and techniques. But, you’d agree, that
wouldn’t make your own work an example
of “Japanese film.” It’s not a question of
“inferior,” or “imitation,” just, y’know... it’s
your non-Japanese filmmaker’s take on a
Japanese film, instead of a Japanese film.
We don’t call Cowboy Bebop an
inferior imitation of a Sergio Leone or
John Woo film, even though it takes
strong influence from them. Likewise it’s
perfectly possible for a foreign filmmaker
to make something in animation or liveaction strongly influenced by anime. But it
won’t be anime, any more than Bebop is
a spaghetti Western. Tarantino has taken
much from Hong Kong movies, and is very
up front about it. He’s probably done as
faithful a homage as any foreign fan. But
no one calls him, nor would he call himself,
a “Hong Kong director.” He’s a Hollywood
director, and I would no more want the
world to be without Hollywood than I
would want it to be without the anime
industry.
Anime doesn’t necessarily show us
faces of Japanese appearance (or any kind
of human; in real life you’d run like hell
from a girl with eyes two inches wide); so
perhaps it’s one step easier to forget it’s
essentially foreign film. This isn’t said in
some mystical, never-the-twain-shall-meet,
oh-we-will-never-understand-the Japanese
sense. Nor is it to say that any gaijin
filmmaker—animator or not—shouldn’t
take inspiration from what they admire in
Japanese animation. They can be assured,
after all, that anime is taking inspiration all
the time from them. Hybrids, co-operation,
crossovers of all kinds are possible where
these worlds meet, and they’re happening
right now. But these worlds still have a
different core, a different essence. Anime
is a different person. We’re not falling in
love with a mirror. ¡

Frames Per Second Magazine

Transcription

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